The Good Earth

What does Wang Lung’s family’s gradual disconnected from the land say about their moral position and their hopes for future success? Explain what you think happens to Wang Lung’s family after the close of the novel

What does Wang Lung’s family’s gradual disconnected from the land say about their moral position and their hopes for future success? Explain what you think happens to Wang Lung’s family after the close of the novel

Asked by
mario m #502237
on 2/16/2016 3:29 AM

Last updated by
Aslan
on 2/16/2016 3:55 AM

Answers
1

The earth also quite literally evokes tradition and ancestry. By the end of the novel those characters closest to the earth -- Wang Lung's father, O-lan, and Ching -- have been consigned to the earth. They are the earth once more, just like their ancestors. Their lessons, their wisdom, and even their bodies thus enter the cycle of feast and famine that follows from the earth. By the novel's end, the connection between Wang Lung's family and the earth is almost totally severed. Wang Lung's sons have all chosen different paths, and though their comfort has been build from land-ownership and farming, they have little interest in continuing these pursuits. The novel ends with Wang Lung's sons speaking about selling the land, something that greatly distresses Wang Lung but that strikes the reader as inevitable. Wang Lung, though occasionally enjoying the pleasures of a rich man (for example fine food and clothes, and another concubine named Pear Blossom) never wholly sheds his identity as a farmer. However, his sons, who are eager to sell the land and make more money, represent the changes to come. I think the family's connection with the land will be lost.